George W. Bush Settles with His Family at Bush Prairie Near Tumwater In

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7072 HistoryLink.org essays now available Timeline Library < Browse to Previous Essay | Browse to Next Essay > This essay made possible by: Donation system not supported by Safari Humanities Washington Shortcuts George W. Bush settles with his family at Bush Prairie Libraries near Tumwater in November 1845. Cyberpedias HistoryLink.org Essay 5646 : PrinterFriendly Format

Timeline Essays In November 1845, George W. and Isabella James Bush and their five sons settle near Tumwater on a fertile plain that comes to be People's Histories known as Bush Prairie. They and their party, which includes their good friend Michael T. Simmons (18141867) are the first Selected Collections Americans to settle north of the Columbia River in what is now Cities & Towns Washington. The Simmons party makes the historically significant decision to settle north of the Columbia primarily because the Counties discriminatory laws of the provisional government of Oregon Biographies Territory prohibit George Bush, an African American who is a key leader of the group, from settling south of the river. Interactive Cybertours George Washington Bush (1790?1863), an experienced Slideshows frontiersman and successful farmer, was one of the wealthier Public Ports pioneers to follow the Oregon Trail west. His father, of African descent, was said to be a sailor, and his mother was an Irish Audio & Video George Washington Bush (1790?1863), n.d. American servant. As a young man, Bush worked as a voyageur Courtesy Henderson House Museum and trapper for fur trading companies, including the famed Research Shortcuts Map Searches Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). During this time he traveled Alphabetical Search extensively in the Western plains and mountains, perhaps reaching Timeline Date Search Puget Sound. Topic Search

Features Seeking Freedom in the West Book of the Fortnight Audio/Video Enhanced By the 1830s, Bush had settled in Missouri and married Isabella (or History Bookshelf Isabell) James (c. 18091866), a young German American woman Klondike Gold Rush Database Duvall Newspaper Index with whom he had five sons (a sixth was born in the West). Bush Wellington Scrapbook farmed and raised cattle, and the family was well off. However, Missouri, a slave state, had passed racial exclusion laws, and Bush More History Painting by Jacob Lawrence, George Washington FAQs and his sons faced increasing bigotry and discrimination. In an Washington Bush series, No. 3 Washington Milestones effort to escape the discrimination, the Bushes joined the family of Courtesy Washington State History Museum Honor Rolls Columbia Basin their friend Michael Simmons, a white Kentuckian, and three other Everett white families related to the Simmons, to head west on the Oregon Olympia Trail. Bush's frontier experience made him a valuable addition to Seattle Spokane the party. Tacoma Walla Walla When the Simmons party reached the Columbia River in the fall of Roads & Rails 1844, they found that the provisional government of Oregon Territory had enacted discriminatory laws, like those of Missouri, barring settlement by African Americans. Not wishing to separate from the Bush family, Simmons and the other members of the party decided to locate north of the Columbia, where American settlers and their provisional government had not yet extended their reach. The party spent the winter of 184445 on the Columbia, not far from Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver in presentday Clark County.

The New Settlement

In 1845, Simmons led an exploration around Puget Sound, and http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=5646 1/3 5/25/2016 HistoryLink.org the Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History ultimately decided to settle at the head of Budd Inlet in what is now Thurston County. In October 1845, the entire party set off from Fort Vancouver down the Columbia River to the Cowlitz, and up that river to Cowlitz landing. From there they spent 15 days making a road through the forest to Budd Inlet, where Simmons established a settlement he called New Market, which later became Tumwater.

In early November 1845, George and Isabella Bush and their sons settled nearby, on a fertile prairie that soon took their name. The family began a farm, using seeds they had carried with them, that soon became the most productive in the region. Within a few years Simmons and Bush had set up a sawmill and a gristmill near their claims.

As more settlers poured into the region, Bush became famous for his generosity. From his stores of grain, he provided newcomers, sometimes halfstarved from the journey, food for their first winter and seed to start their farms, asking no payment other than to return, when they could, the amount they took. Bush was also known for his friendly relations with and influence among the Indians of the region.

Discrimination and Exception Michael T. Simmons (18141867), Thurston County pioneer, n.d. Courtesy Washington State Library, Rural Ironically, the discriminatory laws the Bushes were trying to avoid Heritage Collections had followed them, at least in part due to their own pioneering efforts. The 1845 American settlement north of the Columbia was one of the catalysts for the 1846 Treaty of Oregon, which resolved the U.S.British boundary dispute by giving the territory south of the 49th parallel to the U.S., thus bringing what is now Washington under the discriminatory law of Oregon Territory. As a result, Bush did not have a clear legal claim on the 640 acres he and his family had painstakingly cultivated.

When Washington Territory was organized in 1853, many of the new legislators were friends and neighbors of the Bush family and beneficiaries of their generosity. Although this experience did not necessarily make them less prejudiced, it did inspire them to make an exception for George Bush and his sons. The first territorial legislature voted unanimously for a resolution urging Congress to pass a special act confirming George and Isabella Bush's title to the land they had claimed and farmed. Congress did so in 1855, and the Bush Prairie farm remained in the hands of the Bush family for generations.

George Bush died on April 5, 1863, and Isabella Bush died on September 12, 1866. Several of their sons went on to play active roles in Thurston county civic and political affairs. The eldest, William Owen Bush, was a member of the first state legislature in 18891890 and an awardwinning farmer who worked the Bush Prairie farm until his death in 1907.

In 1973, acclaimed artist Jacob Lawrence (19172000), a Washington state resident since 1971, painted a series of five paintings depicting George Washington Bush's journey by wagon train across the continent from Missouri to Bush Prairie. The series is in the collection of the Washington State Capitol Museum.

Sources: Ruby El Hult, The Saga of George W. Bush (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962, reprint of Negro Digest, September 1962), 8995; Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals (19351999) ed. by Peter T. Nesbett (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 179; Clinton A. Snowden, History of Washington (New York: The Century History Company, 1909), Vol. 2, p. 42234, Vol. 3, p. 3738, 24243; Paul F. Thomas, George Bush (M.A. Thesis, University of Washington, 1965); HistoryLink.org Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, "Bush, George W. (1790?1863)" (by Kit Oldham), http://www.historylink.org/ (accessed January 2004).

By Kit Oldham, February 01, 2004 http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=5646 2/3 5/25/2016 HistoryLink.org the Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History Travel through time (chronological order): < Browse to Previous Essay | Browse to Next Essay >

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